No Absolute Right to Privacy

FBI Director for the next decade, James Comey, has informed us via a speech he gave this week that there is no absolute right to privacy in the United States.

Comey’s statement that there is no absolute right to privacy is correct. Anybody who thinks about it for a minute will see the truth in that. However, Comey said a few other things. First, he has no understanding of where the “expectation” of a reasonable right to privacy comes from. The history of privacy rights – as we understand them today in the United States – does not begin in 1787. It began in 1890 with the invention of a cool piece of technology that today we still use and is, of course, ubiquitous. And we have the same concern about it today that they had in 1890.

Because Director Comey doesn’t know or understand that, he builds his syllogism based on a false axiom, specifically that we “made a bargain” which traded privacy for security “over two hundred years ago.” Frankly that ought to cause us more concern about his understanding of things. And it would have chilled some of the Framers to the bone…